Strangeloop Thoughts, 2014 Edition

Why do Programming?

After going to Strangeloop for the first time in 2012, I was really
fired up about programming. I'd only been out of school a year and was
already a full-remote Clojure developer making a great salary. Even
better, I had made good progress on my lisp emulation project and
received some recognition from hackers I respected for it.

The last two years Strangeloop has been a lot more sobering. I told
myself things in 2012 about how fast I'd get better and how good I'd
be. Even though my expectations were unreasonable it's taken a long
time to not feel bad about my (relative lack of) progress. I've been
slow to accept the fact that I don't want to fight my way to being the
best in my field.

Strangeloop, 2014

I got in Tuesday night, dropped my bags at the hotel, and immediately
ran off to drinks and phenomenal conversation at the Schlafly Tap
Room. Many of the best experiences I've had at Strangeloop have been
at the tap room. Sure there is excellent food, beer, and technical
conversation, but I've always gotten a sense of personal acceptance at
gatherings there. Strangeloop is certainly a welcoming crowd.

Wednesday was a blast as well, as any day with a trip to the STL City
Museum should be, but more and more I found I cared about personal
interactions more than the content of the talks I attended.

By the end of Thursday, I was stressed out. I wasn't even excited
about the talks, which isn't to say they weren't good. I hated the
idea that I was just an average programmer, that I didn't aspire to
more than hacking bog-standard Rails apps as a career, that I'd spent
almost $2000 out of my own pocket to come to a conference that someone
else might have gotten more out of. I went to bed early that night.

I kept my mindset in check much better on Friday. I reminded myself to
be excited about others discoveries and creations, not to demand
myself learn every tool or technique. The conference wrapped up well
and I particularly enjoyed some of the Distributed Systems talks, a
subfield I still have no experience with. Not to say I want to go
fight distributed heisenbugs soon or design highly reliable
systems. The talks were quite entertaining and informative is all.

Back Home

The main takeaways I've had from Strangeloop have nothing to do with
tech and everything to do with me. Strangeloop has, in many ways,
been a time for me to reflect these last two years. I'm not sure
that's a good way to use the conference but it seems to be what I've
done.

The first takeaway that comes to mind is that I need to try and
respect myself for just being a decent Rails developer. I'm not great
at solving algorithmically tricky problems and my CS background is,
frankly, pretty damn weak. But no matter what I shouldn't beat up on
myself for being "just a programmer". I need to put in an honest day's
work and actually pat myself on the back at the end of it.

The second takeaway is that I need to program for me again. I got
into programming mostly because I wanted to know more about how
computers work. The emulator and talks surrounding it, some of my
favorite work, is really more an investigation than artifact.
I still want to support coleslaw. It actually has a few satisfied
users and I'm one of them. But the only real purpose of the emulator
is to sate my curiosity. Not to become a real thing or be special or
groundbreaking.

There is plenty I'm still digesting and plenty I'm still not sure of,
both technically and in terms of what I want for myself, my career, my
life. But I'll leave that for another day. Cheers.